Definitions
                The scope of a system or “System Scope” describes a set of “System Elements” that address automation opportunities for a finite segment of business operations. System scopes are often identified by the name of the business segment that they serve Examples of “System Scope” include                    The wireless automation of manufacturing operations            The wireless automation of shipping operations            The wireless automation of inventory management                        “System Elements” are that set of technological entities which include but are not limited to electronic hardware devices, application software programs and device firmware which belong to the same system scope.        “Management Activities” include but are not limited to obtaining, analyzing and displaying status of the various elements of the system. Management activities also include the control of the system elements.        A “System” is a set of “System Elements”.        “System Management” includes “Management Activities” on all of the “System Elements” in a “System”. A typical system of the assignee of this patent application is comprised of any number access points, handheld computers, printers as well as both management and business specific application software.System Management of Devices (FIGS. 1A, 1B, 2, 3 and 4)        
Historically management application software concentrated on a specific type of device such as an access point or a printer. This type of management is called “Device Management” because if focuses upon a specific type of device. This type of software was typically created by the manufacturer of the managed device. The evolution of device management software grew to supporting multiple models of the same device type as well as the simultaneous support of different configurations of hardware, firmware and software for the device type. Device Management is illustrated in FIGS. 1A and 1B, where a device-management component 10 is shown coupled with one or more access points such as 12 and 14, and a device-management component 16 is shown coupled with a printer 18.
System Management applications encompass device management, but extend the scope of managed devices to multiple types of devices. System Management applications that support differing types of devices but do not address their membership in a system or their interaction with other system devices embody an approach coined “System Management of devices” by the assignee of this patent application. The system management of devices approach is depicted in FIG. 2.
The most significant advancement of system management is the extension of management activities from the simple scope of a device type to the “System Scope” (defined above). It is proposed that System management activities now not only look at devices individually, but strive to make them work together to the customer's advantage. Specifically the system management application must address each device's membership in a system and the interactions between the devices of that system. A diagram of a managed system is shown in FIG. 2 where the system management component 20 is shown coupled to handheld computers 21-23, access points 26,27 and a printer 28.
The class of devices which is the subject of device management is called “Managed Devices”. Access points and printers are examples of managed devices as depicted in FIGS. 1A, 1B, and 2.
Managed devices are also typically capable of working in a network environment. The most common method of becoming network capable is the addition of an Ethernet network interface card (NIC). The Ethernet support in the managed device typically serves the dual purposes of passing business data as well as management data.
FIG. 3 is a schematic view of some of the common internal components of such an Ethernet enabled managed device 30. One can see that the computer's operating system 31 (i.e. Microsoft Windows or Unix) resides as a software layer hosted upon the computer hardware. We have also depicted applications 33, 34, and 35. Application 35 on the far right in FIG. 3 is not a networked application, but runs directly on the operating system 31.
The other applications such as 33 and 34 are software entities that rely upon the core TCP/IP communications stack 37. The “core” as referred to above encapsulates layers two through four of the ISO seven layer stack. As is typical with TCP/IP applications the presentation (layer six) and session (layer five) layers are implemented within the application (layer seven) itself. Using the TCP/IP stack makes the two leftmost applications 33 and 34 networked applications because they have the ability to use the TCP/IP layer 36 to communicate with other networked applications.
This technique is precisely how networked applications such as 33 and 34 move business data between the software components of a distributed networked application.
The leftmost box 37 in FIG. 3 at the application layer (layer seven) is labeled SNMP Agent. This box 37 represents an SNMP agent as defined by Internet RFCs (Requests for Comments) such as 1155, 1157, 1215 1901-1910, 2578-2980 and 2570-2576. The depiction serves the purpose of demonstrating a method by which a management computer 38 transfers management data, as distinct from business data, to and from the managed device. The SNMP agent 37 is itself a networked application. Different from most networked applications SNMP agents have visibility to other software running on the managed device. Further the SNMP agent makes this data available for review and modification to the management computer's software. FIG. 3 depicts a communication path 39 via which a request from the management computer 38 may be coupled through the managed device's hardware, operating system, TCP/IP stack and into the SNMP agent. The agent 37 then gains access to data in the managed device 30 such as variables in the TCP/IP stack 36 itself and sends the requested data back through the same path 39 to the management computer 38. In this way networked managed devices support both business data and management data over an Ethernet pathway such as indicated at 39.
A diagram of a managed system is shown in FIG. 2 where the system management component 20 is shown coupled to handheld computers 21-23, access points 26, 27 and a printer 28. Each of these managed devices is a networked device and is said to be “instrumented” due to the addition of a management agent such as SNMP agent 37 as described above in the layered view of a networked managed device 30. The significant difference in this depiction is the sophistication of the management computer's software. This management software of component 20 works with different types of managed devices and only one management station is used to manage all the managed devices.
FIG. 4 depicts an application processing system 400 which would typically reside on the application server provided with an Ethernet network interface card 40, and an instance of the remote client application 41 as would typically execute on a handheld computer.
Running in the server's operating system 42 are the layers of the TCP/IP stack labeled “MAC/LLC Layer” 43, “IP Layer” 44 and “TCP Layer” 45. These layers correspond to layers two, three, and four of the seven layer ISO stack respectively. In the example of FIG. 4, the software application 48 on the server communicates with the remote client applications at 41 via communication paths 46 and 47, through ports five thousand (5000) and five thousand and one (5001) of the TCP stack 45. These paths 46 and 47 are for the express purpose of passing business data, but do not support any management data. For this reason the software application 48 on the server is called an “Un-Instrumented Software Application”.
The Importance of Managing the Business Application (FIGS. 5 and 6)
It is helpful to envision typical operational scenarios in understanding the importance of instrumenting the business application software. FIG. 5 shows a wireless handheld computer 51 that has a radio connection at 52 to an access point 53 which itself is connected to an Ethernet segment 54 upon which an application server 500 and printer 56 are also connected. Many typical scenarios use this hardware configuration. A typical use of this configuration is that a scanned bar code or other piece of information is acquired or entered at the handheld computer 51. That data is sent through the access point 53 to the application server 500 on which a business application is executing. The business application software processes the data and sends the results of that processing to the printer 56 e.g. to print an appropriate label, back to the handheld computer 51 or both. The systems of FIGS. 7, 8 and 9 may thus be used in the automation of shipping operations in a factory or warehouse, or for re-pricing operations in a retail store.
The “System management of devices” approach would add a management computer as at 60, FIG. 6, and require that the hardware devices be manageable and instrumented and would manage those devices namely, the handheld computer 61, the access point 63 and the printer 66 as indicated by dash lines 67, 68 and 69.
The importance of managing the business application software is clear when the management software providing “System management of devices” reports that the handheld computer, access point, printer and server are all alive and well, when at the same time the user of the handheld computer cannot perform the required transactions because the business application which is expected to be executing on the server is not actually executing or is in a state where it is not responding to user transactions. In either case the user of the handheld computer cannot perform business tasks with this system.
The solution is to provide a system wherein a management computer performs management of all the system elements that are important to a user in carrying out a given automated business operation. To accomplish this feat, the manageable elements of the system must also include the business application software itself.